1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a firmware flashing method and related computer system, and more particularly, to a firmware flashing method and related computer system for solving lack of capacity of Flash-ROM.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the information society nowadays, computer system has become part of human life, people relies on computer system to process documentary works or daily routines. When the computer is turned on, flashing memory of main board executes basic input output system (BIOS), and initializes chip set and memory subsystem. The BIOS includes function of diagnosis to ensure that some key hardware component, such as keyboard, disk devices, input port and output port etc, works properly and initialized correctly. The BIOS can selectively execute memory setting program, store data set by users, e.g. time, date, hard disk details, etc. In addition, the BIOS allows the user to select which device to start up the computer, e.g. optical disk device (ODD), hard disk, soft disk, USB disk, or allows the user to select which operating system to be loaded in the computer, e.g. load another operating system from a second hard disk.
Since the BIOS and the hardware system are merged together, the BIOS becomes larger and more complex. When new hardware is updated, the BIOS has to update accordingly to support the new hardware, therefore the BIOS is stored in EEPROM or Flash ROM to update the BIOS easily. The BIOS stores many different Option-ROMs in the EEPROM or the Flash ROM to drive special hardware devices, such as Video BIOS of graphic cards and PXE ROM of LAN, these option-ROMs increases data size of the BIOS. When a computer system supports graphic cards with different versions, or network cards different versions, the BIOS has to include all option-ROM of graphic cards supported by the computer system, e.g. Video BIOS and PXE ROM, at this moment, data for storing the option-ROM increases. But, the capacity of the Flash ROM is limited, it has to replace the Flash ROM with larger capacity if over capacity limitation. As a result, production cost may be increased.